New York Daily News

Ambra Gutierrez thankful Time honored her for standing up to Weinstein, but wonders where support was in 2015

·Dec 7, 2017 12:30 PM

Model Ambra Gutierrez is celebrating being named one of Time magazine’s people of the year by giving back.

Gutierrez, who came forward in 2015 to accuse Harvey Weinstein of groping her long before it was known that he was a power perv, was honored by the magazine along with creep-slayers Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd and Selma Blair on Wednesday.

She’s now using her spotlight to draw attention to Humanility with a Thursday night fund-raiser during Miami’s Art Basel festival. The organization works to provide shelter and assistance to impoverished children worldwide.

“I’m very happy to see the world changing into something good,” she told us while preparing for the party, which takes place at 10 p.m. at the Kama Beach Club pop-up @ Hype Studios. “It’s true that unity gives you strength.”

According to Gutierrez, The Time magazine honor justifies the dark period between her filing charges again Weinstein and his finally being exposed as a monster.

“I only wish this had happened two years ago,” she told us. “I was really alone back then, but everything happens in the right time and right now is only the start of an amazing future.”

RELATED GALLERY

Anne Heche added herself to the growing list of women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. The "Six Days, Seven Nights" star said Tuesday, January 23, 2018, on the "Allegedly with Theo Vonn & Matthew Cole Weiss" podcast that the disgraced movie mogul fired her after she refused to give him oral sex. "I personally did not suck Harvey's d--k, although he showed it to me and I got out of the room before there was any physical contact," the 48-year-old actress said. Heche went on to say that she was then fired from the Miramax project she had been hired for. She said on the podcast that she didn't come forward at the time because she feared further retribution. "Thats why every one of us was 19, 20, 21 or 22. He didn't go after the 40-year-old woman," she said. "He hits on me when Im 19, 20, 21, 22, vulnerable, scared, frightened. And that doesn't mean it's not going to happen anymore, but it sure as hell got a kick in the pants the last couple of months." ▲

Salma Hayek opened up about her harrowing experiences with Harvey Weinstein in an op-ed for the New York Times. The actress wrote that Weinstein forced her to do a sex scene with a woman for the 2002 film "Frida," which was distributed by Miramax, a company co-founded by Weinstein. Weinstein allegedly told Hayek he would shut filming done if she did not comply. "And he demanded full-frontal nudity," Hayek said. On the day of filming the scene, the actress said she had a nervous breakdown and had to be given a tranquilizer. "My mind understood that I had to do it, but my body wouldn't stop crying and convulsing," Hayek wrote. In addition to being forced to do the sex scene by Weinstein, Hayek also said he asked her to take a shower with him and give her oral sex, among other grotesque requests. Weinstein once allegedly threatened her, saying, "I will kill you, don't think I can't." By opening up about her experience, Hayek said she hoped to make it more clear why it is so difficult for women to do so. "Women are talking today because, in this new era, we finally can," she concluded her essay. ▲

Newest Harvey Weinstein accuser Kadian Noble broke down in tears during a press conference with attorney Jeff Herman at the Kimpton Hotel Eventi in Manhattan on November 28, 2017, accusing the disgraced Hollywood mogul of enticing her into his hotel room where he forced and coerced her into sexual acts in 2014. Noble, 31, said the disgraced movie mogul made her stand in front of a mirror in his hotel room in Cannes, France while he stood behind her, groping her and forcing her to perform a sex act on him. "I kept saying no, and I just felt so stupid. But at the same time a massive part of me had shut down." Noble said. "It makes no sense that I didn't run out of the room. And all I was able to do was just say no." ▲

Natasha Henstridge said that Harvey Weinstein "pleasured himself in front of [her]" in a hotel room years ago. Henstridge, who was one of the six women to come forward with sexual harassment and assault allegations against filmmaker Brett Ratner in a Los Angeles Times report, said that she had gone to a meeting with Weinstein inside a hotel during the Sundance Film Festival, though she did not specify when. "I did manage to avoid a physical attack by him," she said on Nov. 15, 2017 in an interview on "Megyn Kelly Today." ▲

Julianna Margulies discussed her experience with Harvey Weinstein in 1996, when she was starring on the TV show "ER," during a November 3, 2017, interview with Jenny Hutt on Sirius XM radio. A woman told her that Weinstein wanted to meet her regarding a part in a movie and that she would drop her off at the Peninsula Hotel. But Margulies had had a previous negative experience with Steven Seagal at a hotel, and so she insisted that the woman had to join her. When Weinstein opened the door, clad only in a bathrobe, Margulies saw candles burning and a dinner for two set in the background. Weinstein then glared "daggers" at the woman who had accompanied her, and Margulies turned around and saw her shrug, as if to say to him, "What could I do?" Weinstein told Margulies curtly, "Just wanted to say great audition," and slammed the door on her furiously, she said. "Of course I didn't get the part." ▲

Actress Paz de la Huerta has claimed that Harvey Weinstein raped her on two occasions in 2010. Weinstein and de la Huerta were at her apartment in October 2010, where he took of her dress and forced himself on her. Just two months later, Weinstein showed up in the lobby of her apartment building, making his way up to her apartment and raping her a second time. De la Huerta is now one of more than 50 women to come forward about Weinstein in recent weeks. ▲

Emmy-nominated actress Annabella Sciorra broke her silence on Friday, October 27, 2017, to tell The New Yorker that Harvey Weinstein had violently raped her in the 1990s and sexually harassed her for years later. The alleged rape occurred around 1992, when Sciorra filmed "The Night We Never Met," which was backed by Miramax, Weinstein's then company. Weinstein dropped her off at her apartment after an industry dinner, but then returned, pushed the door open and, "walked in like it was his apartment, like he owned the place, and started unbuttoning his shirt." "I kicked and I yelled," Sciorra said in the interview, but Weinstein overcame her. "When he was done, he ejaculated on my leg, and on my nightgown." The nightgown had been an embroidered family heirloom. He then reportedly tried to perform oral sex on her, saying magnanimously,"This is for you," but Sciorra said she was shaking so violently that he left.
During another instance in 1997, he allegedly showed up at her hotel room in Cannes, and, she said, "There's Harvey in his underwear, holding a bottle of baby oil in one hand and a tape, a movie, in the other." Sciorra, horrified, described pressing every call button she could find until hotel staff showed up and he left.
To this day, she confessed, she sleeps with a baseball bat by her bed. ▲

"Splash" actress Darryl Hannah also detailed a number of hair-raising incidents with Weinstein for The New Yorker on Friday - although she said he was never able to get her alone. One night in Cannes, she related, he pounded on her hotel room door until she slipped out of her room via another exit and spent the night in her makeup artist's room. The next night, Hannah said, she and the makeup artist actually pushed a dresser in front of the door to keep him out. A few years later, on an overseas press junket for a Weinstein film, the actress said Weinstein let himself into her hotel suite with his own key late at night. "He came through the living room and into the bedroom. He just burst in like a raging bull. And I know with every fiber of my being that if my male makeup artist was not in that room, things would not have gone well. It was scary," she said in the interview. Hannah experienced "instant repercussions" after she refused to let Weinstein feel her breasts, she said - the next morning, she discovered that the Miramax private plane had left without her, and her hotel, hair and makeup artist and flight to Cannes for her film's premiere had been cancelled. ▲

Gutierrez, a budding model, first gained notoriety in 2015 when she went to authorities to complain that Weinstein had sexually assaulted her during a private meeting in his office. Some tabloids at the time implied she was an opportunist looking to exploit a wealthy film producer, and she says she struggled to find work. It wasn’t until October, when the New York Times published a bombshell report detailing a plethora of allegations against Weinstein, that Gutierrez saw vindication. Now, she’s using social media to push for a law that would require a third party to be present when artists meet with producers.

Time magazine cover of the magazine's Person of the Year edition features "The Silence Breakers."Image by: AP

Gutierrez says partygoers at her Thursday night event can rest assured that Weinstein won’t be among the celebs in attendance.

“I think Harvey has lots of things to do,” she laughed. The disgraced movie mogul could find himself doing time as both the NYPD and LAPD continue their investigations into his alleged sexual misconduct.